NetTuts.com has continued their series about constructing a Twitter application as a Yii framework-based application. In this latest tutorial they expand on the previous post's "tweet storm" functionality and instead posts random updates based on pre-defined content. If you need to catch up, you can find the other parts of the series here.

The nature of the Twitter stream makes repetition useful, within reason; overdoing it is spammy and annoying.[...] This automates the task of repeating and creating variation over time to increase the likelihood that your Twitter followers will engage with your content. Keep in mind that the Twitter API has limits on repetitive content. You'll be more successful if you offer a wide variety of variations and run the service on an account that you also use manually to share other content.

They start with a short list of features the application needs to support including the main goal of posting the randomized, recurring tweets. They start by creating the Group model and table to allow for the grouping of tweets. Then they use Yii's scaffolding to create a form for creating new groups. Next up is the controller code to handle the group submission and an update to link a tweet to a group. Finally they include the code to push the tweets out to Twitter and mark the tweets as sent. The post ends with an example of a timeline with the resulting posts.

Nick Halsted has posted the first two in a series of programming tips, not necessarily specific to PHP, but still very useful.

Over the years I have built up what I call my 'programming wisdom' this is what has replaced my early years of supposed 'raw talent'. [...] So I thought to myself what have I learnt that I can put across that will be useful to my fellow programmers who have not made all the mistakes I have. I plan on writing a long series of programming tips over the coming weeks (disturbed only by solicitors, investors and other scary programming time eating monsters).

Nick Halsted has posted the first two in a series of programming tips, not necessarily specific to PHP, but still very useful.

Over the years I have built up what I call my 'programming wisdom' this is what has replaced my early years of supposed 'raw talent'. [...] So I thought to myself what have I learnt that I can put across that will be useful to my fellow programmers who have not made all the mistakes I have. I plan on writing a long series of programming tips over the coming weeks (disturbed only by solicitors, investors and other scary programming time eating monsters).